I continued until I felt Griff’s heavy hand lay on my hip… and then that was all I could feel.
Griff’s voice broke the silence. “Why were you self-conscious?”
“Huh?” I turned to face him. His hand didn’t leave my body, and I was internally thankful.
“Earlier, in the bar. You said you felt self-conscious.” He held my gaze.
I twisted my lips, feeling lame about it again. “It’s just different being alone again… And I’m kind of uncomfortable in my own body right now. It’s not a big deal. I’m just not used to it all, ya know?”
He looked like he was about to say something but stopped himself.
After a silent beat, he said, “You should try to sleep on your left side. It helps circulation to the baby and doesn’t put any pressure on your organs.”
I held up my hands and pretended to grasp a pencil… with myrighthand, then turned to my left side– which was facing away from him.
I heard him chuckle behind me.
“What are you laughing about? The sexiness of this situation?” I made my arm do an exaggerated sweep of my pregnant body. Here we were in bed, talking about circulation and organs.
“You… you want this situation to be sexy?” His voice sounded tight.
I felt my entire body burning up from the inside out over how hard I was blushing. I thought I was going to turn to face him and see his lips pushing together in amusement… but instead, he looked kind of shocked…
I faltered a bit and shook my head. “I don’t know what I’m saying these days,” I tried to joke.
“Here.” I felt his strong arms moving me into a different position. He pulled my hips back and my knees up. His strong command was kind of…hot. “Lay like this,” he said over my shoulder. I shivered from the closeness of his voice in my ear, and I wondered if he noticed…
I laid there for a second and realized I didn’t feel any aches for the first time in forever. “Oh, wow.”
“Feel better?” His body rumbled with a deep chuckle.
“Yeah,” I said, still surprised.
I felt him move away, but I caught his arm. “No. Please don’t move. This is perfect. I haven’t felt this comfortable in forever,” I told him… and, what I left unsaid… was that I didn’t want to miss his closeness.
A second later, I felt his body relax against mine and his arm slung over my side to touch my stomach. I instantly felt calmer and safer than I had in a while.
“You always know things,” I said.
“Nah, I just research a lot. It helps me feel better. Not a big deal.”
“You looked this up? To help me?”
He felt him nod against me.
“Thank you, Griff.”
“No problem,” he whispered huskily.
Silence settled between us, and I found myself wanting to fill it.
“Ya know the first thing that popped into my head when I heard it’s a boy?” I asked him.
“Hmm?”
“Hockey tournaments in hotels. Mini-sticks, all that,” I laughed. “That’ll be fun, won’t it?”
“Yeah, I haven’t thought about mini-sticks in a long time,” I could sense the smile in his words. “We played in Nick’s living room all the time when we were little. I never played in the hotels though.”
